Hydrocolloids

“Integrated” hydrocolloids were invented by a predecessor company of Xennovate Medical with the first patent for a hydrocolloid that did not “disintegrate” (hence the name, “Integrated”) due to moisture content over time. Hydrocolloids found their first large market in ostomy adhesives holding the collection bags securely onto the stomach without skin damage.

Nurses caring for and training ostomy patients at the time, then started noticing that the number and seriousness of skin problems typically seen around the stoma were not appearing as they had in the past while using Karaya Gum adhesives. Also, those with damaged skin from the use of Karaya Gum demonstrated full healing after starting to use hydrocolloids as their pouch adhesive.

Those peri-stoma skin healing successes led to a new use for hydrocolloids as moist wound healing bandages. The “pre-integrated” years held the risk of “…deep seated, unresolved inflammation in tissue that otherwise appears healed,” due to the melting of the hydrocolloid into the wound beds, while the integrated versions took that risk away as D. Chakravarthy noted in his publication:, “Evaluation of three new hydrocolloid dressings: Retention of dressing integrity and biodegradability of absorbent components attenuate inflammation”

J Biomedical Materials Res, Vol.28, 1165-1173 (1994).

Example of a Moist Wound Healing Bandage

Xennovate Medical currently offers four standard hydrocolloids in roll stock form to be sold to “converters” to create specialty hydrocolloid bandages for safer and more rapid healing or for skin-friendly ostomy pouch adhesives. While Xennovate Medical will also create specialty formulas for your needs, our standard roll stock formulas are designed for these specific applications:

The graph above shows the distinctive features of the four standard Xennovate formulae.

As can be seen by the line graph of Saline Absorption, the highest level of absorption exists in the wound formula xm18w. The number of days of wear time will be driven by the degree of exudation exhibited by the wound on which it is applied. Depending on the degree of exudate, xm18w might be worn without intervention from one day to as many as five days specified in the protocols at some wound healing specialty centers to take fullest advantage of the “moist wound healing” methodology.

Xm18o is designed specifically for use as an ostomy adhesive holding pouches to the skin or the skin-side of a 2-piece ostomy system while surrounding the stoma. The absorptive capacity need not be as great for ostomy as for wounds, because it is intended primarily to absorb skin moisture release (sweat) over time.

Xennovate’s xm18e formula was specifically designed for use in conjunction with skin attachment devices, as can be seen by the data showing notably less absorption with slightly higher sheer adhesion to the skin. One sensible application would be for use in 1-piece ostomy pouching systems, which by design have way less wear time.

The last of the four formulas, xm18s, where the “s” stands for shear adhesion, was specifically designed with that function in mind. It was designed to hold a dimensional monitoring device to the chest wall. As the Z-dimension of a 3-dimensional device increases, the need for high shear adhesion increases significantly. It also found use with a catheter stabilization device used on infants.

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